


Trapped

by Winterling42



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Introspection, Strategy & Tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 08:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18890773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Fjord attempts to plan from the Iron Shepherds' cage. He has Yasha and Jester to help, mostly.





	Trapped

The first day was…fine. Well, it wasn’t fine. The three of them were gagged and shackled in a cage, the air stank, they hadn’t been fed. But that first day was more fine than the rest of them.

By the second day, Fjord was too tired to suppress his shivers, too sore to bother curling away from Jester on one side and Yasha on the other. The cage was too small for them to stand up, and despite the filth there was no appeal in crouching and letting his legs cramp.

The light never really changed, under the tarp. The slavers travelled mostly at night, and stopped well off the road during the day. So Fjord wasn’t sure what time it was, only that it was too dark to see the color in Yasha’s mismatched eyes, the blue of Jester’s furious face. They were all just shapes in the shadows, comforting and worrying by turn. All they had was each other, and by the sound of it they were heavily outnumbered.

Fjord shivered again, growling as the spasm hit every sore spot in his body. Jester hissed something through her gag, probably sympathetic. Jester was the only one in the whole damn cart not freezing her ass off–as far as Fjord could tell, she wasn’t even  _cold_. Even Yasha, with her heavy furs, was shaking occasionally.

“Jester,” he said, sounding pretty intelligible even with the cloth in his mouth. “Yasha.” Worse, but he felt them both shift to look at him. “We gotta think about…gettin’ out.”

Yasha growled agreement. Jester held up her hands, wiggling her fingers and shaking both the manacles. Fjord nodded to her, holding up his own shackled hands. But there was something he could do without the elaborate gestures or words needed for spellcasting. Unfortunately, it also came with a flash of witch-fire, and they didn’t need any more attention from the slavers. “I’ve got the sword,” he chewed the words through the gag, but Jester only shrugged and made a question noise at him. “The falchion–” that  _definitely_  wasn’t understandable– “the  _sword_.” He outlined it with his hands.

Jester wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively, and Fjord groaned. He was glad it was dark enough she couldn’t see him blush, though he could feel her sides shaking as she laughed.

“Hwen wat?” Yasha nudged him with her shoulder and clanked the chains around her feet. From outside, someone banged on the bars. “Stop moving around in there.” It was a female voice, deep enough to be a burly human or a half-orc.

Fjord hated how they all fell silent; he could feel the fear in it. They were all weak from the cold and the hunger, outnumbered and out-spelled. But it was the fear that would get them in the end.

“You think I can cut those chains?” he asked, leaning back so he could watch Yasha’s face. She was so  _warm_ , a bulwark against the biting cold, and he was too tired not to lean into it. Too worn thin and out of ideas.

Yasha laughed once, a short huff of breath he felt more than heard. “No.”

Jester scooted closer, until she was practically in his lap. Fjord tried to lean back, much less comfortable with this turn of events, but there really wasn’t anywhere else to go. After a moment he resigned himself to being a Fjord sandwich, a surprisingly comfortable position despite the iron manacles digging into his arm. “What next?” Jester asked, and then grinned. “After the sword?”

Fjord rolled his eyes and then, after a moment, was forced to shrug. “Run?”

Yasha and Jester sighed at the same time, and he was pretty sure he could feel Yasha rolling her eyes. “Wait,” Yasha said, settling with her back to the cage. “Then, run.”

Sometime during the night, Fjord woke out of a doze to find Jester asleep with her head on his chest, snuggled up against him so that Yasha could wrap her arms around them both. He held very still for a moment, barely breathing. The thought of moving crossed his mind only briefly. Looking down at the dark curls of Jester’s horns made his heart feel very…full, like when a stray cat came up and rubbed against your hand. Or a bird came to land next to you without effort, precious and delicate. And Yasha the only thing holding him together, the only thing stopping him from shattering under the fear creeping up his throat.

Fjord really hoped that the others were coming, because he honestly didn’t know how they were getting out of here alive.


End file.
